Hey, you! Yes, you—person who watches Star Trek and Star Wars all the time and generally just seems to love anything to do with stars—you know where all those stars come from? Space! And you can win a trip there—that is, provided that you promise to use your experience to help your community and fellow humans and not to set up a galactic empire to rule with space wizard powers.
Spaceship Earth Grants will award one in every 50,000 applicants from today until the end of 2014 the chance to take a ride in a suborbital spacecraft. Applicants must set up an account through the SEG website and write a short essay with an optional 90-second video to answer the question, “How will you use this experience to better yourself, your community or our planet?”
Your application (after paying a fee from $15-$90 based on the relative wealth of your nation) will be judged by experts like Our Friend Bill Nye, astrophysicist Maraia Hoffman, and SEG President and VP Astronaut Leland Melvin. Winners of the grand prize get:
A trip aboard the winner’s choice of spaceflight providers available at time of award announcement
Spaceflight Training package from Star Harbor Space Training Academy
(stay tuned for more information on Star Harbor in October)Travel expenses including coach airfare to/from home country, food/housing and ground transportation
In addition, 1 in every 100 of the first 5,000 applicants will get to experience weightlessness in-atmosphere with a free parabolic flight. All applicants will receive:
A $500 USD Value discount for a Star Harbor Space Training Academy program
One-Year Free Membership in the The Planetary Society – $37 USD Value
Certificate of Application with a unique “SEG Crewmember ID”
The more people who apply, the more flights will be handed out, so come up with a reason to go to space that’s better than, “It’s where Jedi come from,” and give it a shot if you’re 18 or older.
(via Space.com, featured image via Spaceship Earth Grants)
- Solar flares also come from space, and you can watch the birth of one
- Philae’s comet photobombed a selfie of its solar panels
- Astronauts phoned home to talk to some elementary school kids from the ISS
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